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US-based Aussie Jessica Rose-Clark will make her UFC debut against Bec Rawlings at UFC Sydney next Sunday.
MMA Today first reported the news after Scottish fighter Joanne Calderwood was removed from the card. Calderwood was originally set to fight Rawlings at the event.
Although the UFC has yet to announce the change, Fight News Australia has also confirmed the news with sources.

The UFC is giving popular rising English welterweight Darren Till the fight he asked for – and in his home country, no less.
The undefeated 24-year-old Till (16-0-1 MMA, 4-0-1 UFC) will take on former two-time title challenger Stephen Thompson (14-2-1 MMA, 9-2-1 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 127, which takes place Feb. 24 and airs on FS1 following early prelims on UFC Fight Pass.
The card was recently announced for Orlando, Fla., but UFC President Dana White revealed during a Q&A tonight in Santa Monica, Calif, that it will be moved to England, according to Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times.

“The Barbaric” is looking to close out 2017 with a bang.
Having missed out on an opportunity to fight Michael Page this past May after Page suffered a knee injury, Derek Anderson will get back in the cage when he fights Adam Piccolotti in a catchweight bout (160 pounds) at Bellator 189 on Dec. 1 at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla.
Officials announced the matchup Thursday.

Peruvian prospect Humberto Bandenay (14-4 MMA, 1-0 UFC) will have to wait to follow up on his scintillating UFC debut.
MMAjunkie today confirmed with UFC officials that Bandenay has been forced to withdraw from a planned UFC Fight Night 121 appearance, and the promotion currently needs a new opponent for featherweight Alex Volkanovski.

ONE Championship atomweight star Angela Lee star has been removed from an upcoming title defense after being involved in a car accident.
Lee was scheduled to rematch Mei Yamaguchi in the main event of a ONE show on Nov. 24 in Kallang, Singapore, but CEO Chatri Sityodtong broke the news of the accident and Lee’s subsequent withdrawal on Facebook:

Aljamain Steling is looking for a fight.
The New York bantamweight was scheduled to meet veteran Rani Yahya in a bantamweight bout at UFC Fresno on Dec. 9, but Yahya has been forced to withdraw from the bout due to an undisclosed injury.
MMA Fighting confirmed an initial Tuesday report by MMAjunkie. The promotion is actively seeking a new opponent for Sterling.

Dana White responds to Demetrious Johnson’s demand for a $2 million payday.
In this era of “big money fights”, many UFC fighters have specific figures in mind as to how much they would want for specific match-ups. Flyweight champion and top pound-for-pound fighter Demetrious Johnson, for instance, wants a $2 million payday for super-fights.

Georges St-Pierre did the improbable Saturday night. He came back from four years away, moved up 15 pounds in weight and defeated Michael Bisping to win the UFC middleweight title. At UFC 217 in New York, “GSP”, a longtime former welterweight champion, became just the fourth UFC fighter to hold titles in two different weight classes. It cemented him on the short list of best fighters of all time, if not made him the consensus greatest ever.
His future, though, remains uncertain. The UFC wants him to unify the middleweight title with interim champion Robert Whittaker next. And St-Pierre has said that is written into his contract. But many, including his boxing coach Freddie Roach, still think he’d be better off back to welterweight.

Less than six weeks out, two additional fights have been finalized for UFC Winnipeg.
Jan Blachowicz is stepping in on short notice to fight Jared Cannonier in a light heavyweight bout, replacing Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, who was removed from the booking after being flagged for a USADA violation on Oct. 19.
Officials also announced a welterweight bout between TUF: Nations finalist Sheldon Westcott and Danny “Hot Chocolate” Roberts.

Eryk Anders will go from fighting one UFC newcomer to another when he makes his return to the octagon at UFC Fight Night 123.
Anders (9-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) announced on Sunday that John Phillips (21-6 MMA, 0-0 UFC) is out of their scheduled middleweight bout at the December event. He now fights another promotional newcomer and now-former LFA middleweight champion: Markus Perez (9-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC).

On Saturday’s UFC 217 broadcast, the UFC officially announced nine events for the start of 2018.
The first quarter of next year kicks off with a Fight Night event in St. Louis, Mo., and wraps up with a trip to the O2 Arena in London, England.
Other international stops include Belem, Brazil, and Perth, Australia. It will be the first time that the Octagon visits those cities.

It seems a title unification bout is on the horizon for Georges St-Pierre.
On Saturday night, the former UFC welterweight king returned to the Octagon after a four-year layoff to take on UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping in the main event of UFC 217, which took place at the Madison Square Garden in New York City. After two competitive rounds, St-Pierre defeated Bisping with a third-round rear-naked choke, thus becoming the new middleweight champ.

UFC 217 was full of memorable performances. So much so that four Performance of the Night bonuses weren’t enough.
Each of the three new champions crowned on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City took home an extra $50,000 for their efforts.
Georges St-Pierre, who choked out Michael Bisping in the main event to win the UFC middleweight title; T.J. Dillashaw, who finished Cody Garbrandt to claim his second UFC bantamweight championship; and Rose Namajunas, who made Joanna Jedrzejczyk tap to strikes in their strawweight title fight; all won titles and all took home bonuses.

A Legacy Fighting Alliance fighter said he died in the cage during a bout Friday night and had to be revived after his heart stopped.
C.J. Hancock wrote Saturday morning on Facebook that he is “okay” after his heart stopped and he had kidney failure during a fight at LFA 26 on Friday in Houston.

Ion Cutelaba wasn’t the only UFC fighter to suffer the wrath of USADA on Friday.
UFC heavyweight Azunna Anyanwu has popped for a potential anti-doping violation stemming from an out-of-competition drug test administered on Oct. 18, the UFC announced Friday.
Anyanwu (14-5) lost his Octagon debut via split decision to Justin Ledet on Sept. 16 at UFC Pittsburgh. Previous to that, the 36-year-old fighter competed on the inaugural episode of Dana White’s Contender Series, where he scored a highlight-reel second-round knockout of Greg Rebello.

UFC 217 has lost a fight at the last minute.
The bout between light heavyweights Ion Cutelaba and Michael Oleksiejczuk has been scrapped after Cutelaba was flagged by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for a potential violation.

Ever since it became clear that former Team Alpha Male teammates Cody Garbrandt and T.J. Dillashaw have been on a collision course, “No Love” has boasted that there exists footage of him knocking Dillashaw out during their time as sparring partners.
On Thursday, the UFC bantamweight champion finally posted footage of what Garbrandt alleges to be that KO on his Instagram page:

Following a hotly contested unanimous decision loss to Gegard Mousasi at Bellator 185, Alexander Shlemenko and his team have issued a formal protest to the Association of Boxing Commissions and the Mohegan Department of Athletic Regulation seeking to have the result of the bout reviewed and possibly overturned.
On Thursday, Shlemenko’s manager Alexei Zhernakov sent a copy of the protest to MMA Fighting in which he points out several issues with the judges’ decision, specifically regarding the second and third rounds of the Oct. 20 main event, which took place in Uncasville, Conn. He argues that round two saw Shlemenko do the majority of the damage while Mousasi could only offer ineffective grappling, and that the final frame could feasibly have been scored a 10-8 in favor of Shlemenko.

A lightweight clash between Islam Makhachev and Gleison Tibau has been added to UFC 220, sources told MMA Fighting.
UFC 220 will be the promotion’s first pay-per-view card of 2018. The event is scheduled for Jan. 20 at Boston’s TD Garden.